More and more often we’ve been discovering that we’ve been playing some of our games wrong.

Well, maybe not wrong, but it seems like some rules somehow slip by us. Sometimes we purposely ignore certain rules. With co-op games, we always play with our cards face up on the table. It just makes it easier to strategize. Other times it’s just that we messed up.

Some of our mistakes we discovered because of a BoardGameGeek thread. Others were discovered after rereading the rules again.

With 7 Wonders, we didn’t realize you couldn’t play multiple copies of the same card. No one ever questioned it, so we never looked at the rules for clarification.

When we first started working on this blog, we filled out player profiles which included our favorite games. I listed mine as Castle Panic, Shadows Over Camelot, and 7 Wonders.

In the nearly two years since then, we’ve played a lot of new games or revisited older games with a new expansion or end goal. A lot of other things have changed as well, so I don’t think I’d pick the same games today as I did back then.

Castle Panic is a great co-op game, and it’s often one I like to pick as a new game for someone.

Shadows Over Camelot we don’t play as much. It’s a co-op game, but with how many quests there are to complete, you end up splitting up and working alone, so a lot of the time you don’t feel like you’re working together.

7 Wonders is a great game, but we haven’t been able to play it lately. It’s hard to be excited about a game that doesn’t see a lot of play. Right now it’s just Professor and me, so we’re more likely to play 7 Wonders Duel.

Our board game collection takes up a serious amount of space. Most game boxes have an excessive amount of empty space inside (aka “slack fill”). Regardless of the reason (plastic/cardboard trays are the usual culprit), the wasted space makes the boxes bigger. It is also rare that the publisher leaves room for expansions, which means that you have your original game box, and each expansion. For our 7 wonders collection, this was a large stack of boxes. It also meant that when we wanted to play 7 Wonders, we had to get all the boxes, open each up and collect the various cards and extra bits from each one, creating a lengthy setup (and tear down) process.

It has become a running joke that Space Cat always wins. During games we often make comments like: “Space Cat’s going to win”, “I’m shooting for second place!”, and “Second place? That’s a win!” Space Cat is a very good sport about all this teasing, though she has pointed out that she doesn’t always win.

7 Wonders is a favorite of our group, but President Gamer thinks Space Cat frequently wins. I wasn’t so sure about this. We keep all the score sheets, so I looked through past games to test the veracity of his statement. I discovered something interesting. In reality Space Cat has only won 7 Wonders once. How could we be so wrong about this?

This was when we realized that we had messed up and discarded the last leader instead of passing it on. Oops! My final Leader let me play a card from the discard pile for free. I was hoping for a green card (science symbol), but Professor had already played a card from the discard pile and took the only green card. I was disappointed that my starting hand didn’t have any green cards, and Professor indicated that he had at least one. He also pointed out that he would be passing his cards to me. I took this to mean that he was going to be nice to me (his wife), by passing me a green card. Instead, he played one, participated in the Great Work, and passed me a hand with no green cards. I only held it against him until I was able to participate in the Great Work.

Setup details available in the first post.
Space Cat looked out over her Gardens. Stage two was complete, and they would begin stage three shortly. President Gamer had already finished his Temple, and Professor had just finished his Mausoleum by using resources the others used to hire Leaders. Space Cat hoped Cleopatra would be worth the gold she’d spent to hire her.
Her spies had reported that Clumsy Ninja had hired Nefertiti; Solomon had brought enough resources to Byzantium to build a structure for Chubby Unicorn, and Caesar was increasing the military forces in Rhodos. Space Cat hoped this meant President Gamer, who’d hired Nebuchadnezzar, would turn his attentions to Shutter in Rhodos, since Space Cat’s Babylon still didn’t have a military. If she wanted to complete her Gardens, which she had every intention of doing, she couldn’t spare any resources on armies. It was time to get to work.

“Just my luck,” Clumsy Ninja groaned as she looked over the details of the next Great Work.Declaration to all cities: The final Great Work to be undertaken by our collective cities shall be the Archives Each city wishing to participate must build a Scientific StructureFee: 400 GoldReward: Resources to complete another Scientific Structure
Even though she’d wanted to participate in the last Great Work, she was finding herself hampered by her inability to get glass. Her own glass resources had been used to pay reparations when the first Great Work failed, and neither Rhodos nor Byzantium had any glass for her to buy.
Though her army was nothing to laugh at, Alexandria didn’t have any Scientific Structures. Finding the resources and location for one now would prove more difficult. Plus she had only completed stage one of her wonder and pressure to continue construction was mounting.

Setup details available in the first post.
In a fit of frustration, Space Cat crumpled the report. Her Leader, Berenice, would bring in a bit of extra income, but, as a lover of science, she coveted Professor’s Leader, Aristotle. Babylon already boasted a few Scientific Structures, and Space Cat planned to build more. She smoothed out the report once more and read over the rest of the information.

President Gamer hired Hannibal

Shutter hired Amytis

Clumsy Ninja hired Semiramis

It seemed Chubby Unicorn declined to hire a leader, and Space Cat wondered if Byzantium was suffering from cash flow issues. Since they weren’t neighboring cities, it was unlikely to have much of an impact on Babylon.

“Declaration to all cities,” the town crier of Alexandria read from a scroll. “The second Great Work to be undertaken by our collective cities shall be the River Port.”
Clumsy Ninja looked down at an identical scroll in her hands and read along:Each city wishing to participate must be able to supply loom and build a Commercial Structure. Fee: 100 GoldReward: 600 Gold
“Hmm, that might actually be possible,” she murmured.
Alexandria already had a loom supply and enough money, now Clumsy Ninja just needed to find the right Commercial Structure for her city.